Galed Into Insignificance

Parts 1 to 3

I jumped off the train, on a mission. It was stopping in Turpan for two minutes, and two minutes only.

The hot air hit me like a ton of hot air, which, believe it or not, is just as heavy as a ton of bricks.

The friendly carriage attendant had directed some of my fellow passengers to help me unload my bike, and they then kindly carted my panniers, backpacks, accessories, guitar, and the rest of my baggagerie onto the platform.

It was a team effort, and what an infinitely friendly and helpful team I was in.

I couldn't exit the station because there were two successive one way turnpikes, and once you were in the first one, you could only move forward, and not go back for more of your things. There's no way I could fit all of my things, and my bike, in just one section of the turnpike.

Despite some business-hungry taxi drivers urging me to come through anyway, I knew that their need for cash was overpowering their logical knowledge of physics, and so rather than get myself into a pickle, I got the security guards to come over and open a side gate.

The security guards turned out not to be security guards at all, but the police. So the simple opening of a gate became the usual litany.

Everyone seems to love meat around these parts, but this time it wasn't all of those dead animals getting the complete grilling. It was me.

It was 1am, and after such a huge day and all the station kerfuffle I wasn't in the mood to reassemble my bike, load up, and then ride the 15km to my hotel in the dark. I was tired, hungry and headachey. My bike wouldn't fit into a taxi, packed as it was, but eventually a driver popped it in his boot, and then tied down the lid.

As we drove off into the balmy night, Bewdy hung out the back of the cab like a dry and thirsty dog with its head out the car window, desperately trying to cool off.

And as soon as the ignition was on, the Arabic music began pumping. It was great! My headache was forgotten, and as we sped off I quickly realised I'd been suddenly transported into a brand new world - the fascinating and completely different world of the Uyghur.

My driver took me to the wrong hotel. He couldn't read Chinese, or Arabic. He speaks Uyghur, which is the name shared by the local people and their language. The Uyghur tongue is Turkic-based, but also borrows words from Arabic, Persian, Russian and Chinese. It sounds so interesting.

Believe it or not, but Uyghur sounds quite Slavic, with harder consonant sounds, more 'sh' and guttural 'ch' sounds, and it's not very flowy. But it doesn't really sound Arabic at all, it's way more European. I guess all of the above descriptions are exactly what Turkic-based languages sound like.

I used Baidu Maps so I could direct the driver to my hotel. When I went to pay he couldn't change my 100 CNY note. Of course he couldn't. You'd think, given the number of times I've fallen for that trick, I'd've learnt by now. But no. Despite getting 2 fifties from the hotel receptionist, it was still his lucky night.

After yet another infinitely long checkin process, which always involves phone calls to the hotel manager, the police, and then passport photocopying, explanations, translations, my mugshot, computer inputs, blah blah fuckity blah, I finally made it to my room.

It was 2.30am by this stage, and, although I was super hungry, the receptionist had explained to me that nothing was open, not even convenience stores. Their stores of convenience had run out.

Luckily I found some snacks in my bag, a bit of fruit, a few nuts, and some other things pretending to be food.

And then, finally, after a seemingly endlessly long day, I laid down on my hard bed, and the curtain finally came down on my weary eyes.

Backpedalling

I hadn't meant for it to happen like this. I'd heard there was a direct train from Dunhuang to Turpan. But that turned out to be fake news. I ended up needing to get a bus to Liuyuan, about 140km away, and then my plan was to take an overnight train to Turpan.

But when I got to Liuyuan, the friendly railway policeman informed me that there was no longer any luggage service from that station, and that, for security reasons, the only way to get my bike on the train was to pack it up into a box and bring it on the seating carriage.

The very helpful fellow explained to me that if it remained unpacked, any sharp part of the bike could be dismantled and used as a weapon on the train.

Yeah, yeah I understand. But what a bloody hassle.

He really was the sweetest guy, and basically spent the next half hour creating a makeshift bike box for me, packing and taping it up, while I dismantled the handlebars, pedals, front wheel, and anything else that stuck out. It takes time to do these things, but my friendly helper seemed to be in an enormous hurry.

Then we rushed through security.

I soon realised the reason for the hurry. I'd already told them I was heading to Turpan, and before I could protest, they'd already printed out and issued a ticket for me on the very next train, leaving in about 2 minutes, which was, in fact, not really what I wanted at all.

I'd planned to stay in Liuyuan for a few hours, go and get some food, and then take the overnight train, so I'd arrive in Turpan in the morning, and could just ride off into the day.

But they explained that they didn't have any luggage storage there at the station, and therefore I needed to go right away. So I was bundled on to the train, railway staff helping me carry all my stuff, as I couldn't just wheel my loaded bike along the platform like I normally would.

They basically wanted to get rid of me, so I was out of their hair, and could be someone else's problem. Bloody foreigners.

It was all rush rush rush, which is really not my preferred way of getting around.

But hey, everyone was so overwhelmingly nice about it.

And the complete irony of the whole story was that, although they scanned all of my luggage, they were in such a hurry to get me onto that train that they just ignored the scan, and didn't open or check any of my bags. If they'd've looked at their scanner they'd have seen that there was a whole pile of metal tools, a knife, and bits and pieces scattered all over the place, any of which would make the perfect sharp weapon on a train.

Sometimes you really do need to think outside the bike box.

Two minute noodles and a dirty window view from the train

First glimpse of Xinjiang Province.

Flags in my hotel lobby -  China (right), and the Communist Party of China (left).

I can't believe how many innovative ways there are to mess up the translation of "Beware, Slippery Floor." That's about the tenth I've seen, so far. And they've all been hilarious.

As I strolled out of my hotel in the (just) morning, Turpan was stinking hot, dusty and still.

The city is 80% Uyghur, and as soon as I hit those blistering streets I immediately felt like I was in a new country.

Eurasian faces stared at me, or Caucasian ones, and some Han. There was little Mandarin to be heard.

Turkic and Arabic and local music blared from speakers everywhere. Shops featured signs in Arabic, Chinese and, occasionally, English.

Islamic architectural styles are common here.

I mean, it's still obviously China, especially when it comes to the police presence. But, for obvious reasons, I'll describe all that to you at a later date. And more.

My friendly hotel receptionist had suggested a jiaozi (gyoza) place for late brekky.

The prices were ridiculously cheap. 0.6 CNY per piece, which is about 12c Oz.

This filling feast was about $2.50.

They had a map of China on the wall. Note the size of Xinjiang, the northwestern orange province, where I am now. I've ridden right through the green province, Gansu, from bottom right to top left, bordering the Amdo Tibetan-populated province of Qinghai (pink bit), and Inner Mongolia (yellow).

Note that Tibet, Taiwan, and Hong Kong are all regarded as parts of China.

Dual purpose underpass

Cardboard off, and now ready to be reassembled.

Restaurants

Tourist complex, specifically designed for Chinese tourists. I didn't go in.

Grape-vined Qingnian Lu, a nice place to ride in the evenings, despite it still being swelteringly hot at that time of day.

Little markets close to my district.

I've been living on these. Absolutely delicious shiny sweet apricots. What a treat.

Yarkhoto (Jiaohe) Ruins

Yarkhoto is the site of one of the first cities ever built in this part of the world. It was settled way back in 300BC or so, and hosted about 6500 residents, which made it a major settlement at that time.

I rode the 10 clicks out to this incredible ancient place in the scorching early afternoon, although, I've gotta say, the heat really doesn't bother me.

And anyway riding keeps you cooler.

Plus I'm a superhero. (I just need to find an easy way to monetise that indisputable fact).

Local architectural style in an older part of town

Mosque

The whole region is famous for its many many varieties of delicious grapes. Not grapes for wine, as it's a Muslim region, (although there are a few local wines around these days), but just grapes on-the-rocks, or sultanas, or currants, or grape juice.

Close to the historic site I rode past this village, I thought it was the ancient city at first, but it's an abandoned traditional mudbrick village.

Yarkhoto, a UNESCO World Heritage site (as part of its collection of Silk Road sites), is the oldest (and one of the largest) earthen cities in the world. It was established atop a leaf-shaped plateau surrounded by cliffs, which actually made it unnecessary to build city walls to protect it.

And rather than building mud brick walls from the ground level up, buildings were made by digging deep deep down into the earth, which created much stronger walls from the undisturbed soil, walls that were much less prone to erosion. Many still exist today, all these years later, so I guess it sorta worked.

The name Yarkhoto is derived from the words yar (river, in Turkic) and khoto (city, in Mongolian). The whole plateau sits within a river that splits in two and flows on either side of it.

The city was an important stop on the Silk Road, and flourished for many centuries, as a part of various Uyghur, Kygyrz, Han and other kingdoms, until it was ransacked by the Mongols in the 13th Century, led by Genghis Khan, and subsequently abandoned.

This is one of the most delicious sweets known to humankind, a soft milk-based nougat with slightly sweet nutty flakes inside, and the most delicious flavours. A real ripper, this one. A girl was selling it at a stall outside.

Yeah, the outdoor cycle life makes you a little grubby.

The visitor centre was pretty impressive, and super informative, but unfortunately most of the information wasn’t translated into English.

Visitor Centre entranceway

Buddha statue replica from the ruined city. The whole northern part of the city consists of the remains of Buddhist temples and stupas.

Luckily, there was an option not to take the shuttle bus, and I had a lovely walk along small local roads to get to the various sites.

These guys were chillin in the trees close to a village.

Another oasis, ho hum.

Abandoned mud brick homes, now used to house animals.

This general and his horse were also chillin in the trees.

In other words, don’t linger…

...under this

Multilingual sign that appeared rather overkillish, given that the only foreigner within cooee of the place is me. I saw no foreign tourists at all in Turpan. Maybe they come here when it cools down to 40.

Remember that they dug into the ground to build this place. Some of the walls are really high.

What a mission.

Rather intricate architecture, especially given its age, and the fact that it's a-dug out.

Remains of a temple

Looking down off the plateau

It ain’t gonna last forever

Eventually I found a shady spot. Yeah, I know. Plastic vine leaves.

The clever preservers of the Yarkhoto site have also completely reconstructed a nearby ancient local village, so you can get a real feel for what it would’ve been like to live in the area hundreds of years ago.

There’s a museum in there too, which houses some artifacts from the ancient city, including pottery works.

Close quarters

Wooden saddle. Looks painful.

Plastic grape drying techniques from centuries ago, the grapes picked from plastic vines with plastic leaves, all of which you see around these parts.

Water mill

Gorgeous tea spot. "Please remove your shoes when going up to the kang." A kang is an earthen platform at one end of a room which, when it's cold, they light a fire underneath to keep you all warm and cosy. After dinner you take the table away and sleep on rugs on the warm floor. Sounds good doesn't it.

Old guy making noodles. You see this a lot in China, especially with real people.

Cot for a newborn

Assorted old carpets and fabrics

Rather risque, this one.

Music room with a host of traditional Uyghur instruments. The smaller stringed instruments hanging lower are called dutar, they're amazing, they have two nylon (formerly silk) strings, and sound like the oud. The taller ones are metal -stringed tambur, and are basically a drone instrument like the Indian tamburah.

Well played. It's a drum.

Doppa, or flower caps. Many men still wear them.

Traditional weaving. This particular design is quite common in women's dresses around here. I love the hair too.

Camels getting around the outer courtyard

I don't think this translation was right. But then again, maybe it was deliberate, continuing the current policy of discrediting Uyghur leaders.

Guess what this is?

It's a bog hole. I couldn't resist showing you. The shit drops down to the pigs, I know this style from other places, like Ladakh in India.

Brownie points if you guessed right.

This is a local lord's family house from about a hundred years ago. It's a beautiful place to be, on this furnace of a day, it's cool and shady, and very stylish, in an earthy, organic sorta way.

Mulberry juice. It was delicious. They also make a mulberry fruit wine around here.

The lady and lord who lived here planted these mulberry trees when they were first married, to represent the ongoing growth and longevity of their love for one another. So romantic. The trees are still going strong, the couple's love has outlived their mere mortal bodies.

True love always will, of course.

Emin Minaret Mosque

I cruised the back streets to visit this beautiful mud brick ex-place-of-worship.

This is another old part of the town, and there's loads of quiet shady streets. Sometimes I rode past endless mulberry trees, and, underneath Bewdy's tireless tyres, deep purple stained streets and pavements seemed to stretch forever.

First glimpse of the stunning minaret.

Exquisite hand made local clothing, for weddings and other dress-ups.

The minaret here is named after Emin Khoja, who was a general in a Uyghur kingdom based right here, which held power in the region during the very explosive Turpan time (©Manu for that pun. I trained her well).

Emin successfully led his revolting people against the Mongol Buddhist Dzungar Kharnate in 1720, with the help of the Qing dynasty army, which just so happened to be fighting the Mongols at the same time.

Emin eventually pledged allegiance to the Qing, and that's why he's honoured here by the Chinese government. But from another perspective, he's also been called the most significant collaborator in the whole of the Qing Imperial expansion into Central Asia.

The minaret, at 44m, is the tallest one in China, and is made almost entirely of bricks, with a small amount of wood used for the window latticework. It's absolutely beautiful. The geometric and floral mosaic patterns are stunning to see, and are really a mix of Chinese and Islamic styles.

Unfortunately you can't go to the top anymore.

I couldn't work this one out. At first I thought it meant No Pics, but what's with the cutting knife?

Qing messenger man

Ok

This is Galdan Khan, the leader of the Mongolian Dzungar Khanate who was defeated by the armies of the Qing dynasty and and by Emin Khoja's army. His helmet looks remarkably like the German army helmet from the mid 1800s, the Pickelhaube.

Turpan back in the day

Minority temporary camp

Chinese Qing General Lui Jintang

Local heroes

The minaret in the early 1900s, photographed by foreign explorers

No, this animal doesn't have a seal in its mouth. The mammal is some sort of prehistoric creature that became extinct because it kept bumping into things, because there was a huge growth in front of its eyes.

A beautiful view of the glorious mosque and minaret, from a nearby lookout.

But it's time to get real now.

After coming here, and after speaking to locals afterwards, I now understand what's really happening here. This very sacred mosque and minaret have basically been taken over by the local Chinese authorities, and turned into a paid tourist attraction for Chinese and foreign tourists. It's incredibly disrespectful to Muslims.

And it's happening to minority populations all over China. Sinocisation is a real thing, the Chinese government openly talks about it, and has embarked on a policy of controlling (and sometimes eradicating) the religious and cultural practices of minority groups, as well as temporarily closing and completely reconstructing hugely important and sacred buildings such as mosques, by removing their minarets and Islamic style roofs, and replacing them with Chinese towers and curved roofs.

The 5 times a day call to prayer by the imams from the mosque, a practice that happens all over the Islamic world, is now banned in China. New government bureaucracies have been formed to strictly control church leadership, policies and finances, so they toe the party line.

Certain culturally and religiously important buildings, like the Emin Mosque and Minaret, have been commandeered by local authorities, with the intention of boosting the Chinese domestic tourist industry, and to maintain the narrative myth that China respects the traditions and culture of its minority groups, and that they, in turn, fully support the Chinese government as their legitimate rulers.

My Hood

My little hotel was in a super interesting district.

Right across the road was the main market, a fascinating place to explore, because there was so much there that I'd never seen before.

Again, I appeared to be more of an attraction than the wares. If stall owners didn't smile and squeal at me so much I'd swear they hated me for taking their shoppers' attention away.

More caps (doppa) than a Trump text

So much new fashion

Sale away

It was magic checking out these carpets

Another veritable feast. I've had many bowls of jiaozi soup lately, it's a staple here, although every one is different. This one had loads of fungi, beans and tofu in it. And the chilli was combustible.

So many bright colours.

Spices and medicines, many of which I've never seen

Silkworm cocoons. Where there's mulberry trees, there's silkworms. Where there's silkworms there's silk. Where there's silk there's a Silk Road.

Beautiful building design

Doesn't look like China around here does it? But it well and truly is. You just need to look down the street, at all the police vehicles, or at the police on the street, many of whom stop and question people, seemingly at random.

Red date juice. It was delicious, watered down and chilled with ice. It constantly flows through the yellow hose and then into the hole in the fridge, and goes round and round, and gets cooled every time on the way through. So cute. They just fill up the cups for you as needed.

Plastic waste is a massive problem in China. It's absolutely everywhere. You get bags, cups, straws and other unnecessary plastic rubbish thrown at you whenever you buy any tiny thing. Another item on the list of things to sort out here.

My drink spot .....

..... right next to the headscarf fashion store. So many options a-veilable.

Fried egg rolls

Literally Blown Away.

I've now been cycling for hundreds of days on this trip, and, as you probably know, I've faced all sorts of challenges on the road at different times.

But today was, without a doubt, one of the hardest of them all.

Looking at the big picture just for a minute, I've gotta say that there's loads of different things that can affect any particular riding day.

Firstly, there's the condition of the road itself, how good or bad it is, whether there's a shoulder, and whether the traffic's heavy, light or even nonexistent.

Then there's the incline, whether it's a steep up or down and hugely swervy, or a gentle slope, or undulating, or even totally flat.

How my body's feeling at a particular time is obviously important too, and late on a long riding day fatigue can make it really tough.

And then there's the wind factor.

Out here in the flat desert lands that's become the number one thing - and it can make my day incredibly easy, or seriously challenging.

I've experienced some brutal winds on this part of the trip, and been battered by sand and dust storms that've made it almost impossible to ride.

But today was next level.

The wind was so brutally fierce that it actually became physically impossible for me to ride. It was so strong that it was also almost impossible to even walk with my bike, and just attempting that, which I was forced to do for a long time, was a hugely challenging physical effort.

It was quite still when I left Turpan, to continue my northwesterly route to Ürümqi, the large capital city of Xinjiang Province.

Remember Turpan is situated in a geographic salad bowl, at over 150m below sea level, so I spent the first couple of hours of the ride climbing out of it, and then continuing to rise in elevation.

The vast expanse of western Xinjiang Province. The sky was clear and the land stark. No gritty sand storms in sight.

Arabic Mandarin signs are now commonplace as I head further into Muslim lands.

At one point along that first stretch, a brand new empty ute stopped in front of me on the road, and the driver kindly asked me if I wanted a lift with my bike. I thanked him but said no thanks. He didn't seem to want to take no for an answer, but eventually drove off.

Later in the day I was to rue that moment.

The traffic was pretty light, and eventually I got to a place where my road, the only one available to bicycles, was completely barricaded and closed. That happens in China. They don't just do major roadworks and allow the traffic to continue around them. They just close up the whole road, sometimes for months at a time.

Luckily for me there was a police booth at the barricade, and so I went to ask if I could go through the barricade anyway, which they've allowed me to do in the past, because bikes aren't allowed on the expressways.

But there was no one there. Hmmmm. I had a snack, and turned around with my bike and started to think about what the fuck I should do next, when suddenly a friendly policeman appeared from the booth and called me back. He'd obviously been sleeping. Sprung!

He said I could pass through, and helped lift Bewdy over the barricade.

I got the feeling that Bewdy appreciated being touched by another man for a change. But she wouldn't openly admit it to me.

The longest single lorry load I've ever seen in my life. And it's just one blade of a massive 3-bladed wind turbine. I estimated at the time that this one load was as long as four back to back full length semi trailers, including their front cabins.

And a lot of them went past, all loaded in exactly the same way.

There were a few wind turbines about, but as I rolled along the road I noticed the most humongous collection of them in the distance, all starting in a line at one place, and then stretching right off to the horizon, as far as the crosseye could see.

As I rode towards them it seemed they were multiplying. There were literally hundreds of them.

And then, wham!, it happened.

At the very moment that I finally reached the beginning of them, the wind hit me like a ton of mudbricks.

Suddenly, and completely by surprise, I was now riding headfirst into a complete gale. It was an absolutely unbelievable and immediate change. It was like finally getting to the top of the hill at the Valley of the Winds at Kata Tjuṯa, Central Australia, and stepping into a fierce gale.

But this gale was a million times stronger

I had to switch to my lowest gear straight up, and suddenly could now only ride at an agonisingly slow crawl. Sometimes huge gusts would blow me right across the road, and not just onto the lane next to the shoulder I was trying to ride within, but right across to the other side of the road.

But, thank Buddha, Allah, Jesus and all the goddesses, there was no traffic around at all, because that whole wind tunnel, disguised as a road, was closed to everyone but me. And the very very occasional service vehicle.

At least that.

I stopped here, in the shade under the expressway, for a little while. But it was so windy and unpleasant that I couldn't stay very long at all.

I tried to carry on in a grindingly slow forward movement, but the gale, and the gusts, just got stronger and stronger.

And then they became too strong. After a couple of close calls, when the wind threw me and my bike towards a huge drop off on the side of the road, and I had to slam on my brakes, it then actually suddenly threw me around till I was almost facing the road behind me before I could stop.

True story.

I gallantly tried to be heroic for awhile and push on, but resistance was useless. It eventually became impossible.

I then struggled trying to walk the bike for awhile, but the wind would sometimes catch it and almost throw it out of my hands, or slam it towards my body. It was pretty hellish, and really challenging physically.

And the thing is, it's not that I had a huge litany of alternatives in front of me. It was the complete opposite. I had none. I was on a road all by myself, no traffic was going past, and there was no way of me getting to the distant highway, where the vehicles were, to try and get a lift, because not only were there no roads leading to it, but it was also completely fenced off by impenetrable barriers. I am in Xinjiang after all.

Camping was impossible, there was no shelter anywhere, and there’s no way I could’ve put a tent up in that gale, and probably no way it would've stayed up anyway.

Actually there was one alternative option. Turn around and ride back, with the wind at my back, and then carry on all the way back to Turpan.

But after all my effort so far, that option wasn't particularly palatable, and was the absolutely very very last resort.

So, what to do?

Just try and keep going, bit by bit, and see what happens.

So on and on I went, at an excruciatingly slow pace, muscles sore and straining, hurling expletives at Mother Earth whenever she nearly threw me and Bewdy to the ground. Which she did over and over again.

Well, to be honest, I didn’t hurl the expletives. They hurled themselves, spewing forth from my mouth with no resistance whatsoever. And when I think about it, they weren’t directed as an insult to Pachamama for being such a fucking bitch today, but were more of an exclamation of incredulity at the immensity of her overwhelming power and might.

And, of course, I’m just a flying grain of sand to her. She had galed me into insignificance. The wind was so strong that its deafening roar drowned out the sound of pretty much everything else. I could explete as much as I wanted, but my loud fucking just disappeared, splattered against her great wall of sound, and instantly vaporised into nothing, like piss on a hot rock.

And the noise, and the gale, didn’t stop for a second. It didn’t stop for hours. It was relentless.

Looks quite peaceful doesn't it.

On and on I struggled.

And then, suddenly …. nothing happened.

And then, finally, it did.

I reached a recently closed police checkpoint, and, at last!, could get some shelter and rest from the wind for awhile.

But there was noone there.

Eventually I walked off again into the gale, and then for awhile could actually ride along a brick outer wall, which provided some shelter.

And then, there it was, my salvation. Another police checkpost.

I would never have imagined that I would ever string those two short sentences together in a non-sarcastic way.

But there it was, a busy police checkpost, and an opening in the wall for me to get to it.

It’s so funny when you’ve been struggling with such a physically and mentally demanding gruelling task, and then suddenly you reach a place like this, where all the air conditioned vehicle-bubbles and the tour buses are parked up and people are buying melons and dried apricots at the stalls, sipping iced teas, and walking around trying to stop their sunhats from launching themselves into the desert.

I think that’s what‘s called a juxtaposition. I’m not totally positive about that, but that’s juxtaposition I’m taking about the whole matter right now.

So anyway, I knew exactly what I had to do.

I had to get a lift.

And I knew exactly what I had to do to get it.

Visit the cops.

Of course I knew that visiting the police checkpost building would mean I’d have to physically replay the same weary old podcast of “My Life As A Bicycle Tourist, Who I Am, Where I’ve Been, Where I’m Going and Where I’m Definitely Not Going, Don’t You Worry Guys,” all the while trying to answer their questions before they have a chance to ask them, trying to boost my ego by outwitting them with my cleverness, but knowing deep down that they’ll always find new questions for me that I haven’t thought of, generally because their questions have absolutely nothing to do with anything relevant whatsoever, and they’re only asking them because they’re supposed to be the ones asking the questions, and I'm the one who needs to answer them, xie xie.

But hey, going through that tired routine is like drinking a freezing cold coconut shake on a hot day in the desert, compared to trying to face that horrendous body and soul destroying gale again.

So of course I went through with it.

I also had a cold drink. This is the best flavoured tea I’ve ever had. And not just because of what I’d just been through to finally get my hands on it. Apricot skin tea is now my all time favourite drink in the whole universe.

The police were, as usual, incredibly helpful. After I described my predicament, one of them got up from his counter, nonchalantly slung his big semiautomatic weapon over his shoulder so it was hanging in front of his body, and left his secure room to come over and chat some more with me, and to practise his few words of English.

As he talked and laughed and moved around, right next to me, his death weapon sometimes clattered against the counter, or the wall, the pointy killer end of it swinging around in all directions, including towards his own face, and towards mine. He was completely oblivious to it all, and treated this very real very lethal weapon as if it were a plastic water gun at Songkran festival.

It was unfathomable to me. The first thing I thought of was, “what the fuck, watch out you fucking idiot!,” and then, “how can you be so blasé about it?,” and then, “maybe it’s not loaded,” and then, finally, “maybe it’s not real.” I honestly couldn’t understand his attitude to it.

Anyway, he eventually said he could help me, and then I followed him and his machine gun with my bike to the truck section of the checkpost, he immediately waved down the driver of the first smaller truck to come through, and basically ordered the driver to drop me at the next town, about 40 clicks away.

The driver was a young Uyghur guy, he didn’t seem to be too keen on the idea, but knew he couldn’t refuse a policeman. I felt a little bad about the whole thing, and gave the shy little guy some cash at the end of it all.

In fact, once we were on our way I discovered the driver was going all the way to Ürümqi, which I’d planned to ride to the next day. I immediately checked the weather app, and discovered that the forecast was for westerly winds for all of the next day, and even stronger ones than today.

Well fuck that! I’m not doing that again!

So I asked if I could stay on, and the young driver said he’d take me to where he was going in the city. That was fine by me, I’d ride to wherever I needed to go from there.

Beautiful views from the truck.

Chinese bullet train

Hitting the city in the truck ...

...and on my bike

He dropped me close to the centre of the city, and I had to ride another 20 clicks to get to a hotel I'd booked online from the truck. That took me another two hours, because it was peak hour, it was still windy (but much less) and, surprisingly for Chinese cities, Ürümqi isn't particularly bike friendly, for the most part.

I finally made it to my hotel, it was dark, and I went to get some food, and then strolled back.

Wow.

What a day it'd been.

I'd ridden 90 kms, most of which was headfirst into a gale. It'd been a huge huge challenge, and my body was reminding me of it already.

As soon as I finally laid down on my bed and closed my eyes I was immediately back on that highway, the roar of the wind and the constant struggle against it completely vivid and real.

But my fatigue was overwhelming.

It quickly overtook me.

And I died.

Back In The Big Smoke

So now I've got a little bit of time left to explore Ürümqi. It's a big city, the capital of Xinjiang Province, and a complete melting pot of cultures.

There's so many amazing things to see here.

My visa's nearly dead now, and I need to get to Kazakhstan in a few days.

Soon my China journey will be all over, suddenly, and I'll be in yet another completely different world.

Because, as we all know, there's just so many worlds in this world❤️

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